On Teachers’ Access to the Discourse of Education

As a classroom teacher for almost thirty-five years with a continued interest in reading eductional theory, I have found certain egregious limitations on my access to the discourse of education. These include the bureaucratic nature of authority in the schools, which mistakes position for authority; the overreliance of in-service education for teachers on unsigned "digests" of research ideas, which are often disguised polemics; the resort to "training" as a form of teacher education; and the pitfall of "sophistication," which mimics and reiterates "differences" as a way of negotiating the tacit powers or meanings on which they are supposed to play. Finally, the drama--rather than the career--of teaching makes insight from reading and experience always come a little late, so that learning for the teacher is always a matter of catching up.

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